Lt. JG Natasha Cole - I hear you
Natasha Schell
((Natasha’s Quarters - Deck 3, Sector 14, Compartment 48 - USS Artemis-A))
Her quarters were finally beginning to feel lived in. Not finished. Not settled. But inhabited.
A model of the Challenger sat on the shelf. The framed photograph Aunt Rea had left behind rested beside it, Corad Cole and his bridge crew caught in stillness, all confidence and continuity and history Natasha had somehow inherited without ever being asked whether she wanted to carry it.
On her desk across the room sat the restored NX communicator.
Natasha had been trying, with mixed results, to have a quiet evening. Shore leave had technically given her permission to rest, but rest had always felt less like an instinct and more like an assignment she was perpetually late turning in.
She had changed into comfortable clothes, let the shower run too long, and spent the better part of the last ten minutes staring at the communicator without touching it.
Then it chirped. Not a live hail. Not a standard system prompt. A soft amber indicator pulsed once across the device casing.
Natasha crossed the room quickly and picked it up with both hands, lowering herself into the chair at her desk. Her thumb brushed the worn metal edge.
Cole: ::quietly:: Alright… what did you leave me this time?
She triggered playback. A crackle of old audio. Then his voice.
His voice was different than she had imagined and exactly right all at once. The kind of voice that knew how to hold a room without ever needing to dominate it.
Corad: Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you due to the courage and bravery of each and every single one of you.
Natasha went still.
Corad: Now I understand some of you are new to our crew, but trust me when I say that there is no finer crew that you could be serving with, though they’ve seen their share of hardships and loss, when called upon the Challenger and her crew always answers the call.
Her eyes flicked once to the framed photograph of Corad and his crew. Hardship and loss. The words landed with the kind of weight that did not need to be aimed to hit.
Corad: I was once asked why I wanted to be assigned to the Challenger years ago when I first joined Starfleet, well here’s why. I remember when I was in elementary school I had to do a report on Earth’s early space program. I was assigned the space shuttle Challenger to research.
A faint smile tugged at Natasha’s mouth. That, at least, felt like family.
Corad: One of the first things I discovered was a video of what became known as the Challenger Disaster. For a small child this was hard to understand but I also remember a gentleman by the name of Ronald Reagan who delivered a very passionate speech stating that they would continue to push forward.
She leaned back slowly in the chair, the communicator cradled in both hands now, listening harder.
Corad: When I signed up for Starfleet and saw there was a ship called Challenger I felt as if I was meant to serve aboard it and haven’t looked back since.
Cole: ::under her breath:: Of course you did.
There it was. The line between destiny and stubbornness, blurry enough to feel honest.
Corad: As many of you know the Challenger took a lot of damage during our recent battle with the Romulan, Klingon and Naussicaan coalition.
Natasha’s smile faded. Her thumb tightened against the communicator casing. Damage. Battle. Refit. Recovery.
She already knew, somehow, that the next part was going to hurt.
Corad: Starfleet has refitted her. She’s essentially the same ship with a new body. She’s designed more for fighting than her predecessor. We will be better equipped for what we’ll encounter out there.
Natasha stopped breathing. The room didn’t move. The stars beyond the viewport didn’t move. She didn’t move.
Same ship … New body.
The words did not hit her like a revelation. They hit like recognition.
Sixteen. Terrified. Defiant. Hoping that becoming herself would not cost her herself.
Callis I. Burned through and overclocked and pushed until her body had chosen for her what she refused to.
Sickbay. Coming back in pieces that still belonged to the same whole.
She pressed the heel of one hand to her mouth. Her eyes burned.
Cole: ::barely audible:: Oh.
Corad: To borrow a phrase from Mr. Reagan, The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. So let us be brave and push towards that future.
A quiet, unsteady laugh escaped her.
Cole: You really would say that.
And yet it worked.
Maybe because courage sounded different coming from someone who had already been bloodied by the breach and stepped back into it anyway.
Corad: I personally want to say how deeply proud I am of each and every one of you. We have been taken to the brink of destruction countless times over the past two years, and here we stand together ready to head back out into the breach. I am truly honored to have you as my crew.
And there it was.
Not command as a distance. Not command as control. Command as gratitude.
Command as standing in front of a crew you love and admitting that surviving together means something.
The recording ended with a whisper of static and then silence. She sat with it.
The communicator remained warm in her hands. Or maybe that was just her.
She stared past the desk for a long moment, eyes unfocused, mind catching on the same words again and again.
Same ship… New body. Push toward the future. Honored to have you as my crew.
Slowly, her gaze lifted to the photograph on the shelf. Corad looked impossibly steady there, as if someone had caught him in the fraction of a second before he spoke and immortalized the certainty.
Natasha let out a breath she had not realized she’d been holding.
Cole: That was low.
Her voice broke a little on the last word.
Cole: You don’t get to be dead and insightful. That feels like cheating.
The communicator chirped again. Shorter this time.
Computer: Temporal encryption unlocked.
A second file must have been unlocked with the first.
Natasha straightened in the chair, swiping quickly under one eye with the heel of her hand before activating it.
Cole: Play it.
Woman: Well now… if you’re hearing this one, little Echo, then I’ve either timed things very well or made an absolute mess of them.
Natasha froze. It wasn’t Corad… but Aunt Rea. And even through the age and static of the recording, she could hear the smile in her voice.
Aunt Rea: I expect the speech has found its mark by now. He does have a way of doing that, your Corad. Never flashy about it. Just devastatingly sincere at precisely the wrong moment for anyone trying not to feel something.
Natasha laughed once through her nose despite herself.
Aunt Rea: Since I know him better than is probably fair, and I know you well enough, I also know what part is likely lodged under your ribs. Same ship. New body.
A beat.
Aunt Rea: Yes, darling. That one.
Natasha bowed her head.
Aunt Rea: For the record, he meant the ship. Corad so rarely appreciates when he accidentally says something far more useful than intended. But the truth does not much care what doorway it uses.
She could picture Aunt Rea saying it, one brow raised, dry as starlight.
Aunt Rea: So, let me say the part he didn’t know he was saying.
The recording shifted slightly, as though Aunt Rea had leaned closer to wherever she’d made it.
Aunt Rea: Survival changes the shape of a thing. That is not the same as diminishing it.
Natasha’s fingers tightened around the communicator.
Aunt Rea: There will be people in every century who confuse continuity with stillness. They will think that if something is altered, it must be lesser. If a body changes, a life changes, a ship is rebuilt, a person comes back from suffering with different edges than before, then somehow it cannot be the same.
A pause.
Aunt Rea: They are wrong.
The words were simple. Absolute.
Aunt Rea: Identity is not fragility, little Echo. It does not vanish because it survives renovation.
Now the tears came properly, silent and hot.
Aunt Rea: And since I know exactly whose blood runs in your veins, let me save us both some time. You are almost certainly listening to that speech and trying to decide whether what stirred in you was arrogance, grief, ambition, or duty.
Natasha laughed softly despite the tears.
Cole: Rude.
Aunt Rea: It is probably all four.
Another beat. Gentler this time.
Aunt Rea: Leadership is not wanting the center seat because it is elevated. It is understanding, with terrible clarity, what it costs to sit there and stepping forward anyway because the people behind you deserve someone who will hold.
Her eyes flicked shut.
Aunt Rea: If that thought has begun to trouble your sleep, then good. It should. Weight worth carrying rarely arrives feather-light.
Aunt Rea’s voice softened.
Aunt Rea: You need not become him. He would not ask that of you. I know that better than most.
Natasha looked up at the photograph again.
Aunt Rea: But if you become fully, stubbornly, bravely yourself… well. That would make at least two of us very proud.
The recording clicked, then continued for one last line.
Aunt Rea: And for the love of all good sense, try not to learn every lesson by bleeding for it. It is, and always was, his worst habit.
The file ended.
Silence settled over the quarters once more, but it was a different silence now. Not empty. Not waiting... witnessing.
Natasha remained seated for a long moment, communicator held against her sternum like something that had become heavier and lighter all at once.
Leadership, not the center seat... Not yet.
But the road toward it had taken shape now. Not because someone had handed it to her, but because something old and true had named what was already there.
She stood slowly and crossed to the shelf.
The model of the Challenger, the photograph, and the communicator.
She placed the communicator beside them with deliberate care, not hidden. Just set.
Cole: ::softly, to the room, to the shelf, to the history that refused to stay quiet:: Alright.
Her reflection in the viewport caught her eye. Changed, but still herself.
Cole: I hear you.
End scene for Natasha
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Lt. JG Natasha Cole
Security Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205NC4